guh

People saying "I just have a feeling this is going to happen" isn't news, no matter how smart and trustworthy they may be. Only one guy knows what is going to happen and he says he doesn't even know yet and will make a decision in the next week or so.

Also, if the Niners really "love Jim Harbaugh", there is zero chance he is coming to Michigan.

If the Niners love Harbaugh how can you know that it is a certainty that he is not coming to Michigan? Discounting sources in the know who are around people with information on the matter are much more reliable than a poster on a message board so why make the contradictory remarks?

If they "love Jim Harbaugh" they would be willing to offer him top dollar to come coach their team (which is roughly what Pete Carroll got from the Seahwks). No one alive is going to turn down $7 million plus and the opportunity to coach at the highest level in his profession while not having to move his pregnant wife and young kids away from their home in the beautiful Bay Area so they can come to Michigan for less than half the money (there is no reason to suspect Michigan, with a long history of underpaying head coaches in all sports, is prepared to pay him any more than $3 million at most).

Again, if they "love Jim Harbaugh" (i.e. offer him a shitload of dough) there is no chance he comes to Michigan.

Sorry, but things like 7 > 3, more people want to live in the Bay Area than southeast Michigan, pregnant wife and young kids don't like moving across the country, etc. are not opinions. Those are the potential facts of the situation (assuming the Niners actually have a strong interest in hiring Harbaugh). All of those facts favor taking the Niners' job if it is offered at a "we love Jim Harbaugh" salary. The only one that doesn't is "I'm a delusional fan who really wants Jim Harbaugh to come coach my favorite college team because he loves it so much and will therefore be willing to ignore all the other facts of the situation."

A lot of those facts are pretty persuasive, but this could be a NFL vs. college football decision, and a lifelong dream decision. If Harbaugh goes to the NFL, he can never go back. He's too proud and competitive and going from the pros to college would be like a step down. Plus (and this is just my take), coaching in college is more about passion than it is about money. If I was a coach like JH who really seems to be about the passion of the game, I'd want to coach a bunch of young guys who haven't been tainted by overblown salaries and egos and contracts.

To your point about salary, 7 is greater than 3, but 3 is pretty great, too. And so is Ann Arbor and Michigan football and the potential of leading Michigan back to the head of the pack. The NFL and job openings will always be there.

I can't think of any college coach off the top of my head who has consistently turned down legitimate big money NFL offers to stay in college. Spurrier (leaving his alma mater), Saban, Petrino, Carroll, Johnson, Erickson (twice), Riley (leaving his hometown school where he grew up), etc. on the other hand all took the bigger money.

Most of those guys also were able to successfully return to college football if/when things didn't work out in the NFL.

Silent evidence (props to NNT!). That is, due to the nature of the HC search process, it's hard to cite high profile cases of a top coach turning down a job offer because often times, the prospective coach didn't let it get that far.

But I feel EXTREMELY confident in saying the following: (1) Carroll turned down the NFL before last year. The Seahawks were not the first team to offer him a pay raise this decade... (2) Stoops has turned down NFL feelers before... (3) Tressel has turned down NFL feelers before...

I admit - that's not proof. But your construct ignores the silent evidence - when top coaches tell an NFL team "no thanks" it's not always well documented. But you can't assume the next step that Stoops. Carroll (until last year), Paterno, Tressell, Urban Meyer, and other college head coaches have never been offered an NFL pay raise merely because they are, in fact, not in the NFL.

And those are the only things coaches care about right? Those three facts?

Also, they really aren't facts at all. You don't know how much UM or SF are willing to pay. What if it's 3.5 vs 4.5? And what if, heaven forbid, someone would rather live in Ann Arbor, where he grew up and went to college, than the Bay Area (which has Cali cost of living without the nice weather)? Maybe Mrs Harbaugh would rather raise her kids in the Midwest and would rather move now than 8 times before her kids graduate, which is possible if JH goes to the league.

Everything I said was based on the explicit assumption that San Francisco is willing to offer top dollar to get him (which is how I defined "love Jim Harbaugh" in this context). Beyond that (assuming again that the money considerably favors San Francisco), believing that the Harbaughs really want to move to the midwest when they've spent the last decade (the entire time since his NFL career ended) in California requires an enormous leap of faith and quite a change of heart on their part.

You think the Niners - lovestruck or not - are going to pay Harbaugh that kind of money? If not, it's not a "fact," it's a hypothetical. One that many of us could take issue with.

Further, even accepting your hypothetical, one could see any coach turning down and NFL job for a stable college job... depending on their preferences. Query whether or not UM's job is "stable" anymore, but don't be so smug with your assumptions.

The only assumption I made is that "love" equals "will pay whatever it takes to get him." If that is the case, I don't see any way Michigan has a chance at competing with a Niners offer when all the other intangibles (NFL prestige, family stability, location quality) all favor San Francisco as well. The only reason people are freaking out about it is because they don't want to believe Harbaugh would make that choice because they would rather have him at Michigan.

But the posts about how college is way better than the NFL and maybe the Harbaughs are going to out of the blue decide they should have been spending the last decade in wholesome Ann Arbor (instead of California which they may secretly detest despite their uninterrupted stay there) where money just isn't as important because Jim went to school there and played QB for Bo a few decades ago exhibit the kind of delusional thinking that is required to assume Michigan would be in contention for the guy assuming a top-dollar offer from the Niners (and also assuming a coaching vacancy in Ann Arbor).

I think either way, making an assumption on this situation is almost impossible – there just isn't enough evidence. Added with a healthy dose of this all might be for nothing, makes this situation the interesting quagmire it is.

might not even be playing football next year. I can't see the Niners giving any coach 7 million plus for a potential year of nothing. That's what Dan Snyder is paying Shanahan, so use that as a reference.

(2) A 'source' that can be cited when a reporter kinda thinks something might happen, but can't find any actual sources; Buzz out of the Big Ten is that Texas, Notre Dame, Missouri, Pitt, Rutgers, Texas A&M, Oxford, and Hogwarts have agreed to join the Big Ten.

I went to bed last night wishing there would be more porn on the internet, and low and behold I wake up this morning and there is a whole fresh crop of gals on here making their parents proud and doing gross stuff in exchange for a few pennies of ad-click revenue.

I love RichRod as much as the next guy, but I think we need to take a look at all the evidence and take a realistic view on this.

Dave Brandon isn't stupid. He knows his timeline would affect recruiting, but this is also Rich Rodriguez's first bowl game, so why would he strip Rodriguez of coaching in the game? If he wanted to bring in a head coach, he could do it behind the scenes and then not have to worry about another 2007 coaching search.

Where there is smoke, there's fire, and IMO there has been a lot of smoke regarding Harbaugh to Michigan.

Also, there has been strong links of Rich Rodriguez to Maryland. If Maryland wanted to hire Leach, they would've already. The longer they wait to hire a coach, the more and more I think that Harbaugh will be the next head coach at Michigan and Rodriguez will land on his feet at Maryland.

I know this opinion will not be popular, but that's just what it is, my opinion.

Dave Brandon isn't stupid. He knows his timeline would affect recruiting, but this is also Rich Rodriguez's first bowl game, so why would he strip Rodriguez of coaching in the game? If he wanted to bring in a head coach, he could do it behind the scenes and then not have to worry about another 2007 coaching search.

Waiting until after the bowl game to fire RR (and then hire a new guy) is also detrimental to recruiting. Which is partly why I think DB doesn't make the switch. See how easy it is to infer things with minimal information at hand?